Horseflesh
by SingularOddities
Summary: "Pray what would a man of your standing call a proper mount?" Darcy asked laconically. "Something steady. Loyal, strong, and beautiful if possible." The Colonel reached forward to stroke his horse's neck. A one shot for Col. Fitzwilliam because he's an interesting chap and often overlooked.


Tiredness made his horse stumble, nose dipping to the ground, shoulder dropping as the foreleg slipped. "Steady," he said comfortingly. "We're nearly done. A warm barn, clean straw, hay, oats, a rub down. It's only another mile or so."

Her ear didn't so much as flick back towards him as it would usually when he spoke to her, they remained listlessly pointing sideways. She was no longer interested in where they were going, only when they were stopping. The Colonel couldn't blame her. It had been hellish, this ride. Seventy miles of boggy road and unrelenting rain slowed their pace to a walk.

She was his only horse. There was no chance of a change; they had to make the seventy miles together. He couldn't risk her throwing a shoe or pulling a tendon, or they wouldn't make it at all.

She stumbled again, harder this time, her knee nearly making contact with the ground. The Colonel freed his feet from the stirrups in case she fell, and he needed to get clear. God, he didn't want her to fall. He'd never be able to leave her at the side of the road, but he couldn't stop. He had to continue.

He hated war. Hated it. The army was a hard master in peace but war? War was worse. He was a second son, a soldier, protector, defender. King and country were his battle cry. His horse carried him into glorious battle in the name of what was right and good. He snorted in derision. His horse was on her last legs. He was wet through to the skin, chilled to the bone and completely sure he'd caught a cold at the very least.

An explosion sounded to his right. Turning in the direction of the impact he saw the clods of earth descend towards the ground. "There," he said encouragingly. "Cannon fire, we're in range, we're nearly there."

The last three miles across the battlefield soured his stomach. Broken horses lay where they had been hit by rifle fire, shot out from under their riders. Canon fire had splintered carts in explosions of shrapnel, impaling those unlucky enough to be hauling them. The sights were gruesome and made worse by the mounds of dead men he had to ride past. They were men he had likely greeted in passing or in a mess tent, inspected on parade that month. Dead. No more than letters to be sent home expressing condolences.

When the farmhouse came into view, the Colonel slumped in his saddle, a feat he had been sure he was incapable of considering his already collapsed posture. His horse barely took in the sight, blindly going where he led her. He led her to the rear of the building where the barns had been appropriated for the command staff to house their animals.

The Colonel was met by a stable hand, a lad of no more than eighteen. He slid from the saddle and handed over the reins. "She's done a hard seventy miles. She's to be fed, rubbed down and warmed through. Hot mash if you can manage it and make sure she's rugged."

"Sir, I'm not sure…"

"Do it," the Colonel said drawing himself as upright as he could. "One day's rest is all she'll be afforded before we leave and I want her ready for it."

The stable lad nodded his head in a short motion and led his horse away. The Colonel watched her slow, tired, steady steps with the feeling akin to grief tightening his throat.

His horse, a kingdom for his horse. Not so he could escape his fate, but so he could reward the brave, loyal creature that she was. His horse had carried him from the battlefield to home more times than his mother could contemplate or wished to hear of. While his mother never put any stock in how this was due in no small part to his horse, the Colonel knew. You protected and defended and sacrificed for those that carried you safely home, to do otherwise was to court ruin.

The Colonel gathered himself and strode towards the door. The warm light that spilt from the farmhouse beckoning him. His superiors would be at dinner. The Colonel looked down at himself, mud-spattered, drenched through, he would make a spectacle entering the dining room like this, but there was little choice. The French army was on the move; the front line had advanced, his superiors needed to be informed. In three days' time, the farmhouse they were dining in would likely be in French hands once more unless they could be warned and given time to act.

* * *

Sun shone down on fields of yellow, baking them golden. Hardening the ground until the passing hooves made dull, hollow, thudding sounds, kicking up small puffs of dust with every beat.

The Colonel still felt cold. He had been back in England for a month. Just in time for spring to give way to summer, for Darcy to extend an invitation to Pemberley. It was the English countryside he rode through with his cousin at his side. There were no holes caused by canon fire, there were no swathes of dead lying in the winter wheat, the rivers ran clear, and the mud was dry, not squelching with the blood of his fallen comrades.

His horse snorted bringing him back to his present; she snorted again shaking her head side to side, her gait unaffected by whatever irritant flew around her head.

"Steady," he murmured to her. She twisted an ear back toward him, bringing a smile to his face. Darcy could keep his bloodlines; the man was a snob and no judge of horseflesh. The Colonel's horse was several country miles better than Darcy's pompous never-done-a-hard-day's-work-in-it's-life gelding.

The gelding was fussing under Darcy who stoically bore the behaviour.

"Really Darcy, why do you keep that nag?" the Colonel asked. "Send it to traces and get yourself a proper mount."

"Pray what would a man of your standing call a proper mount?" Darcy asked laconically.

"Something steady. Loyal, strong, and beautiful if possible." The Colonel reached forward to stroke his horse's neck.

"Richard, it's your horse, not your wife."

"Darcy, I've known my horse a lot longer than any lady of my acquaintance. I've relied on my horse in the best and worst of times, and she has yet to steer me ill. If she can face an advancing French army and not turn a hair then by god Darcy, whatever fortune I have it's hers."

Darcy was quiet. Hardly unusual for his stoic cousin but the look on his face was contemplative.

"You do not speak of it," Darcy offered just loud enough to be heard over the steady beat of cantering hooves. "And while I profess no great understanding of the conditions and circumstances, I will listen."

The Colonel shook his head, his face closed. "It is not something I can speak of; there are no words Darcy. None. The horrors are best left where they occurred. To bring them here, home, it would leave me with very little untouched."

Darcy nodded, and they rode on, the horses kicking up dust from the road, Darcy's mount occasionally fussing under him.

The road was long, but Pemberley was at the end of it. A summer of forgetting, of spending time with those people he valued. His cousins would take care of him, see to his every need and he would grow fat and spoiled. He shifted in his saddle slightly, adjusting his weight from his leg. The bandages would come off soon. He might need a cane sooner than the expected age, but thanks to his horse, who had carried him through the ambush, a bullet wound in the leg was all he had to remind him of the fourteen other men who hadn't been so lucky.

The war wasn't over, it was unlikely to be so anytime soon, but he would have this summer. Then like a fatted calf, he would return to the slaughter. His horse shook her head again snorting at the bothersome fly. The Colonel reached forward to sooth her, smoothing the shining coat. He would return to war, and she would go with him. Together they would face the enemy; together they would do their duty, serve their country. Together they would return home, or they would not return at all.


End file.
